Trayvon Martin's mom testifies on Hill

A top Senate Democrat called for a broad re-examination of the so-called stand your ground laws that played a role in the high-profile shooting death of a black teenager last year in Florida.

The mother of the boy, Trayvon Martin, also made a public appeal Tuesday for lawmakers nationwide to amend stand your ground laws, which more than 20 states have adopted in some form. She testified that her son was “not the criminal that some people have made him out to be.”

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“What kind of message are we sending if our kids … don’t feel safe; don’t feel safe simply walking to the store to get candy and a drink?” Sybrina Fulton told a Senate subcommittee that was holding a hearing on the issue Tuesday. “We need to do something about this law when our kids cannot feel safe in our own communities.”

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who led the hearing, said it is time for such laws “to be carefully reconsidered.” Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, noted in his opening remarks that legislators in Florida have worked on revising the law, and he urged other states with similar statutes to review them as well.

“Whatever the motivations were behind the passage of these laws, it is clear that these laws often go too far in encouraging confrontations to escalate into deadly violence,” Durbin said Tuesday. “They are resulting in unnecessary tragedies, and they are diminishing accountability under the justice system.”

“Stand your ground” laws allow people to use force –deadly, if needed — to defend themselves from threats without having to retreat first. Florida’s statute passed in 2005.

Martin’s death forced such laws into the forefront of public debate, although attorneys for George Zimmerman, who was acquitted in the fatal shooting in July, did not use “stand-your-ground” laws as a basis for their defense.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the top Republican on the Senate panel argued in his opening remarks that it was not the proper role of Congress to get involved in state laws and that self-defense is the “bedrock of liberty of every American.” Cruz also accused the Obama administration of not prioritizing the prosecution of gun violence.

“This is not about politicking, this is not about inflaming racial tensions, although some might try to use it” to do so, Cruz said Tuesday. “This is about the right of everyone to protect themselves, protect their family.”

The hearing Tuesday, held in a packed Hart Senate Office Building room, brought together a range of legal experts who alternately testified that “stand your ground” laws make communities less safe and those who said such statutes were a constitutional form of self-defense that have been largely misunderstood.

Lawmakers also heard from Lucia Holman McBath, whose son, Jordan Davis, was fatally shot in a similar case in Florida last year. McBath, whose voice broke as she spoke about her son, argued that the ”stand your ground” law “defies all reason.”

“It goes against the sound system of justice established long ago on this very hill,” McBath told senators.

Tuesday’s hearing puts a congressional spotlight on the issue of guns, which has disappeared from the agenda on Capitol Hill after the Senate failed to advance background check legislation due to opposition from most Senate Republicans and a few Democrats.

In a statement, the National Rifle Association defended “stand your ground” laws and noted that eight Democratic governors, including former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, had signed them into law.

“If Sen. Durbin is truly interested in making Americans safer, he should compel Attorney General Eric Holder to testify over what Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the federal government’s ‘horrible’ effort of prosecuting criminals with firearms in Chicago — America’s murder capital in Durbin’s home state,” said Chris Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist.

House Democrats also applauded the hearing. In a letter to Durbin released Tuesday, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings said the hearing was a “constructive and much-needed step” to draw attention to the “stand your ground” laws, which Cummings said was prompting “grave concerns” from his constituents.

“As the guarantor and protector of civil rights, I believe Congress can and must explore the disparate and dangerous outcomes that can arise from the expansion of these laws,” wrote Cummings, who is the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.